“Launching” used to be exclusively a live theatrical moment, akin to smashing a bottle of Dom Perignon against a battleship or raising the curtain on a one-man (or one-woman) Broadway play.
But this year the live, in-person launch is merely the excuse for as big a social media supernova as the candidate can muster. The aim is not so much to advertise the candidate to the entire world as to vacuum up contact info about potential supporters, donors and volunteers.
The candidates this year need all the socialization they can get, for different reasons. Hillary Clinton wants to convert all those Obama lists and all that Obama energy into something of her own. The others just desire some momentum any way they can get it.
Right now the GOP field is the intra-party equivalent of entropy: a lukewarm soup generating nothing major. The Republican "leaders," according to the average of public polls updated every 10 seconds by Real Clear Politics, are Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. Each has such minimal support that he probably wouldn’t get any delegates under the GOP convention rules. And it is downhill from there.
On the Democratic side, it remains true that no one is within hallooing distance of Clinton, and if the polls are to be believed -- and, at this point, what else is there? -- poor old Martin O’Malley has regressed to 0.8 percent. That’s not entropy. That’s absolute zero.
Poll numbers were pulled from Real Clear Politics on Monday evening. Candidate Photos: Getty, Associated Press
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